Supernatural 9 - Night Terror

by John Passarella

  “No. I ran to the phone. Called the police. When I looked out the window again, he was gone. I checked all the doors and windows and closets. I know he’s out there.”

  “According to Sergeant Harrison, Bartch is in his cell.”

  She rubbed her arms, as if for warmth, and nodded. “Yes, he told me. But I know what I saw.”

  “You live alone?”

  “No. Well, yes, right now,” she said. “My roommate’s a fantasy artist. She’s at a convention in Denver. Won’t be back until Monday.”

  That explained the dichotomy between her reading material and the subject matter of the paintings.

  “If you like,” Sam said, “Agent DeYoung and I could check the exterior of the house again.”

  “That would be awesome,” she said. “Thank you!”

  “No problem.”

  After Dean downed his coffee, the Winchesters stepped outside. Sam waited as she locked and chained the door behind them. Dean walked to the Impala and brought back a pair of flashlights.

  “One more cup of coffee and she will literally climb the walls,” Dean said as he slapped a flashlight in Sam’s palm. “Think he might still be here?”

  “She saw a manifestation,” Sam said. “It’s possible.”

  They pulled out their handguns.

  Sam took the left side of the house while Dean circled around to the right.

  The flashlight beam pierced the darkness, startling a cat that meowed indignantly and bolted across the lawn, climbing the nearest fence and disappearing. Toward the back of the house, a back-door light cast a wan glow that failed to extend to a padlocked tool shed at the back of the property. Sam caught movement to his right and swung the flashlight in that direction. Another flashlight answered his, momentarily blinding him.

  “Dean.”

  “Sam.”

  “So far, all clear.”

  “Tool shed?”

  “Padlocked.”

  “In back?”

  Sam walked along the left side of the galvanized steel tool shed as Dean approached on the right. The flashlight revealed a narrow gap behind the shed. Possibly wide enough to hide a man. And this was the darkest part of the backyard.

  Sam stepped away from the side of the shed, approaching the back at a wider angle, when he heard a creak of metal from above. As his gaze darted upward, he held his handgun beside the barrel of the flashlight, aiming them together.

  A hulking, man-shaped silhouette rose above the roof of the shed.

  A footfall creaked against protesting metal. An instant later, the large man launched himself at Sam. His flashlight beam danced across a gleaming rectangle of metal held in the man’s right hand.

  Alden Webb fought his way up out of a troubling dream and stared at the ceiling for a moment trying to remember the dream and why it had upset him, before the hard, repeated knocking on his front door registered on his consciousness.

  The light from the television flickered across the ceiling of his bedroom, revealing an odd pattern of pulsing shadows that seemed to fade away as he became more alert. Shaking off the lethargy, he climbed out of bed and grabbed a robe from his closet.

  “Just a minute,” he called out but doubted the visitor could hear him.

  A few moments later, he swung open the door to reveal a police officer standing there, fist raised as if he intended to knock again—on Webb’s face if necessary.

  “Is there a problem Officer—” he read the man’s nametag—“Jarrett?”

  “Chief Quinn sent me when you didn’t answer your phone.”

  “I didn’t hear it ringing,” Webb said, surprised he had slept through a ringing phone long enough to prompt a personal visit from one of Quinn’s men. “What’s wrong?”

  “We had a report that a supermax con was loose in town,” Jarrett said. “Ragnar Bartch.”

  “That’s impossible,” Webb said. “Besides, I would have been notified of any incident...” What if I missed that call as well? “I’ll call now.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Jarrett said. “It was a false alarm. The deputy warden reports Bartch is in his cell. But when you didn’t answer your phone, Chief Quinn thought we should check on you.”

  “Of course. Thank you. But I’m fine. I was sleeping. Deeply, I imagine, to have not heard the phone.”

  “Have a good night, sir.”

  After the police officer left, Webb closed and locked his door. “False alarm,” he said, shaking his head. “More like a crank call.”

  After all this time, he thought he’d reached an accommodation with the townspeople. He knew they disliked having the prison nearby, but its record was immaculate and, over time, he had hoped for peaceful coexistence. But that was looking like a pipe dream.

  Crank calls, he supposed, would be the order of the day now, another form of passive aggressive protest from all those with the “not in my backyard” attitude.

  * * *

  Sam fell backward, his finger tightening against the trigger of his gun as the gleaming stainless steel blade of the meat cleaver arced toward his neck. The gun went off and the round ripped into the galvanized metal wall of the tool shed—the manifestation of Butcher Bartch had vanished an instant before the bullet left the muzzle of the gun.

  Dean came around the back of the shed, sweeping the area with his gun.

  “Sam?” he called. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” Sam said, rubbing his palm against the side of his neck. “Bartch jumped me and vanished.”

  “You got a good look at him?”

  “Just the cleaver,” Sam said as Dean helped him to his feet. “That was plenty.”

  “You hit him?”

  “No.” Sam grabbed his flashlight out of the grass. “Vanished in mid air before the bullet could hit him.”

  “Should we tell the lady of the house?”

  “Not unless she heard the shot. Doubt he’ll come back tonight.”

  With dawn approaching, Dean started the Impala, thought about calling it a night and heading back to their motel, which was only a few blocks away, but a missed opportunity had been nagging at him all day. He turned to Sam and said, “You up for one quick run?”

  “The garment factory?”

  “You got the address?”

  “Should be in my browser history,” Sam said. He reached back over his seat and grabbed the laptop case, removed the computer and booted it. “From what I read, there’s not much left.”

  “You said they debated making the factory the site of the memorial?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which means something’s there,” Dean said. “It’s the elephant in the room, so let’s not ignore it.”

  Sam found the address and relayed the directions to Dean.

  The Clayton Falls Apparel Company was located on the western edge of town, less than a half-mile from the site of the tarantula attack. But not much remained of the redbrick building. As Dean parked across the street from what had been the entrance to the factory, even with its exterior bathed in the cold glare of streetlights, he had the impression of darkness.

  He climbed out of the Impala and stared at the factory, trying to get a sense of the place. Wrought-iron fencing outlined the perimeter of the grounds, but here and there sections had collapsed or were about to fall over. At one spot, it looked as if a bulldozer had rolled over the fencing to create a mound of debris, but the task had been abandoned. There was so much yellow police tape repeating the words DANGER and KEEP OUT zigzagging through the fencing that Dean wondered if the tape was all that held the rest of it upright.

  Most of the exterior walls were intact, but crumbling away from the top down, stained black from the fire and smoke. The entire roof was missing, having collapsed into the interior. And a wall on the left side was little more than a mound of damaged bricks.

  The building was dead. A bit of urban blight on the landscape. Like the physical representation of a psychic scar on the collective consciousness of Clayton Falls. Something
they were unwilling to let go. But was it responsible for the strange phenomena in the town?

  Slamming the trunk of the Impala, Sam joined Dean carrying an EMF meter.

  “Ready?”

  Dean nodded.

  As they neared the building, Dean saw the freestanding wooden sign angled toward the path leading to where the front doors of the factory had been. The copper sheeting of the sign had tarnished over time, coated with a green patina, but Dean could make out the words engraved in the metal.

  CLAYTON FALLS APPAREL COMPANY

  EST. 1898

  “Look,” Sam said, pointing to the base of the sign.

  Bouquets of flowers, still fresh, encircled the sign’s twin posts. Dean pointed at the open entranceway, which was home to several more bouquets and a few stuffed teddy bears. Not nearly as many visitors as the official memorial, but significant.

  “An alternate memorial,” Dean said.

  “This place is condemned, but they refuse to tear it down.”

  “Got anything?”

  Sam turned on the EMF meter, swept it back and forth as they walked under the doorway. “Nothing... yet.”

  Dean looked up at the looming walls and the open sky overhead.

  “Watch for falling bricks.”

  “What?”

  “Forgot our hardhats.”

  The streetlights failed to penetrate the gloom inside the building. Dean found he had to keep his head down. The footing was treacherous. Loose bricks, burnt and charred joists, and partially melted or shattered industrial sewing machines littered the floor. Broken tables and the hulks of ruined cutting machines impeded their progress. A charred and crumbling staircase that was probably once attached to one of the partial walls led up to nowhere before terminating. Dean’s flashlight beam startled a foraging rat, which promptly scurried away in the opposite direction. Throughout their examination of the interior, the EMF meter remained quiet.

  After they completed a circuit of the factory, Dean said, “Okay. That was a whole lot of nothing.”

  “Worth a shot,” Sam said as he switched off the meter.

  SEVENTEEN

  Before the fading of the night commenced, the deeper darkness continued to navigate through the town, coiling and uncoiling in puffs and wisps and streamers, in the familiar path, unaffected by the prevailing winds and the vagaries of the atmosphere. Its cycle repeated throughout the night, dipping to feed before moving on to sample another meal, and it had fed well. Its dark influence was spreading, like drops of ink in clear water.

  Even humans not in direct feeding contact had begun to feel its ill effects. Anyone within the periphery of its awareness became a food source, a battery providing energy for its nocturnal presentations. And in feeding on their darkness, their fear and despair, it grew stronger, sensing more of itself and forming more of itself with each stop.

  Soon it would be whole, and fear would become all they knew, death their only escape.

  * * *

  Once again Sam found himself underground.

  Not in the root cellar. This time he was tied to a ladderback chair in an unfamiliar, dank basement. Three narrow windows high in the concrete wall to his right provided a view of ground level, judging by the blades of grass visible above the windowsills. The windows supplied the only source of illumination, but no more than the gloom of dusk. Maybe a half-hour from nightfall.

  Yet the dim light was sufficient to reveal the man standing ten feet away from him, the top of his head close to exposed pipes between joists in the low ceiling. He stood with arms crossed over his chest, a satisfied smirk on his face. In one clenched fist he held a long butcher knife, its blade pointing up, beside his jaw.

  Soulless Sam.

  “You again,” Sam said with disgust.

  “Long night?” Soulless Sam said. “Or have you been avoiding me.”

  “Haven’t given you a second thought.”

  “Oh, you should,” Soulless Sam said. “Because I’ve decided to do you a favor.”

  “Favor?”

  “Help you become a better hunter.”

  “Really?” Sam said. “I thought your goal was to replace me.”

  “Oh, that will happen soon,” Soulless Sam said. “But first, the favor. I’m taking Dean out of the equation.”

  “What?”

  Sam’s forehead had become damp.

  Condensation began to bead on the concrete walls of the basement. Though Sam could see the darkening sky through the windows, he had the sensation they were descending underwater, in a chamber with faulty seals, as if somewhere nearby the increasing pressure would blow gaskets and water would flood the room. Sam would drown. But somehow Soulless Sam would have an escape route.

  “You heard me,” Soulless Sam said. “Addition by subtraction.”

  Along the walls, the clear moisture ran like tear tracks down the concrete. Slowly, the running water turned pink and then, trickle by trickle, a deeper red. At some point, Sam decided the walls were bleeding but could not understand why or how.

  “You don’t need Dean,” Soulless Sam said. “You were a better hunter without him. Much more efficient and ruthless.”

  “Yeah. That worked out well,” Sam said bitterly, the botched handling of the Arachne in the forefront of his mind.

  “It’s a marathon, Sam,” Soulless Sam said, waving off the criticism. “On balance, a hunter needs ruthless efficiency. Dean gets in the way of that. Besides, I won’t want him around when I take your place. So my first order of business is to take him out.”

  “You can’t hurt Dean.”

  “You’d be surprised what I can do, Sammy.”

  “I won’t let you.”

  Fissures formed in the damp concrete walls. Blood welled up from the cracks and oozed down to the floor, pools of it joining together and spreading toward the center of the basement. Soon it would cover the entire floor. And begin to rise.

  “I’ll have the power,” Soulless Sam said. “You’ll be an afterthought.”

  “No.”

  Sam pulled against the rope binding his wrists to the chair behind his back. His ankles were tied to the front legs of the chair. No give in the knots. He considered throwing himself to the floor in an attempt to shatter the chair. But he’d be vulnerable for a few seconds and his doppelganger had the butcher knife.

  “Face it, Sammy. You’re keeping Dean away from Lisa and Ben. He’d run to them in a heartbeat if he thought you could handle yourself. But he’ll never go while you’re alive. We both know it. And that leaves me with one option.” Soulless Sam chuckled, tapping the edge of the blade against his palm. “Actually, you should thank me. Dean’s excess baggage. You’ll travel faster without him. And be a better hunter for it.”

  “You’re over,” Sam said to him. “A figment of my imagination.”

  “Imagination is powerful,” Soulless Sam said. “Especially these days, don’t you think? I feel... rejuvenated.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ll find out. Sooner than you think.”

  Sam lunged toward his doppelganger, pitching forward in the chair. He braced for the impact, determined to break free of his bonds before Soulless Sam could strike with the knife. But the impact never happened.

  The basement floor opened in front of him, an expanding darkness, like the sinkhole at Mack’s Qwik Mart, but instantaneous. Blood rushed over the receding edges of the hole, a macabre waterfall.

  Standing clear, Soulless Sam laughed as the floor swallowed Sam whole.

  Sam awoke with an involuntary jerk of the muscles in his arms and legs. In the dream, he’d been fighting against the ropes binding him to a chair. Once awake, the ropes were remnants of his imagination and his limbs flailed wildly at the sudden freedom.

  The motel room was dark. They’d pulled the blinds so the morning sun wouldn’t wake them before they’d logged a few hours of sleep. After two long nights in a row without much rest, the Winchester brothers were running on caffein
e vapors and little else.

  Wanting some fresh air to clear his head, Sam stood and walked to the foot of his bed. He stopped when he noticed the silhouette of a man across the room, back turned toward him, standing next to the other twin bed. Sam almost called Dean’s name, but saw his brother was asleep on the far bed. Then Sam saw the glint of stainless steel extending from the stranger’s fist.

  For a moment, he thought the Butcher Bartch manifestation had somehow followed them back to their motel room, but the body type was wrong—and so was the blade. Not a cleaver—a butcher knife.

  That’s impossible, Sam thought. I’m still dreaming.

  Dreams within dreams. A waking dream?

  The stranger raised the butcher knife over his head, clutching the dark handle in a double-handed grip, knuckles flexing, prepared to strike.

  Sam charged across the room.

  He almost expected his legs to betray him, or the floor to open up beneath him again, or the carpeting to bunch and trip him. But none of that happened. And he was almost fast enough to stop the attack.

  As the stranger drove the point of the butcher knife downward, Sam slammed into him and the other man’s weight was as solid as his own, the impact jarring as they both fell to the floor. Before Sam saw the man’s face, saw that it was in fact his own face staring back at him, he registered the man’s empty hands.

  The knife was missing.

  Soulless Sam smiled at Sam.

  “Too late!” he said.

  Then vanished.

  Dean Winchester, alone in the Impala, drove through a rainstorm at night with the radio turned to a classic rock station, but he heard more static than music. Over the hiss of the tires on the wet road, he heard snippets of Seger and AC/DC and Skynyrd. And no matter the song, the repetitive thwum-thwump of the windshield wipers kept time with the beat about as competently as an inebriated percussionist. Rising above this confused mush of sound with stark clarity, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID display: Lisa Braeden.

  Shaking his head, he answered the call and said, “Ben, we’re not doing this again.”

  “Dean!”